At the end of April I travelled to Whitehorse (capital of Canada’s Yukon territory) to start an 8-week coaching programme with the local club, the Yukon Orienteering Association. Whitehorse is a small city with 34,000 residents, located on the banks of the famous Yukon River (where Sophie Hart and Nathan Fa’avae began their triumphant Yukon1000 kayak race in 2024).

Being surrounded by wilderness the locals spend a lot of time in the outdoors, with cross country skiing being especially popular. Although the orienteering club isn’t large (~40 people attending club events), many members of the public are aware of orienteering and recognise the flags they might see out in the forest.

I was very fortunate to stay with an orienteering family (think the Canadian equivalent of the Adams-Jorgensen household) so I felt right at home straight away. It’s easy to connect over maps! I quickly learnt about bears, borrowed layers to deal with the cold (there was plenty of snow and the lakes were frozen when I arrived) and was amazed by how large everything was; cars, groceries, roads. The orienteering maps were amazingly accessible. This image below shows the maps the surround the city – forest maps in orange, sprint maps in purple, all within a 20min drive from my house in red. Some map examples are Long Lake Megamap, Mt Mac, MacPherson, War Eagle and also a headcam videos of the ‘FunZone’ and the Sage Stomp.

My role as coach was to run the Junior and Adult Programs plus a few extra events here and there. The programmes have been running for 6+ years and consist of 5 groups: Kids Running Wild (7-9yrs), Yellow Squad (10-12yrs), Orange Squad (13+yrs), NAV101 (adults new to orienteering), NAV201 (adults wishing to progress their orienteering). I met with each group for 1-2hrs during the weeknights. Although this doesn’t sound like much it took up the majority of my week to schedule, plan, print, setup and pack down these sessions. This was a big departure from my day job in Christchurch and I loved spending so much time outside exploring new areas. The downside was the need for good time management which I struggled with occasionally! Each group was a different challenge, from trying to keep young children engaged (and safe) for an hour to pushing the limits of the adults (including a 91yr old) and getting them to return the next week. As I hadn’t really coached this age range before I was a bit daunted to start with but spending time with each group and getting to know them was always the best part of my day.

Outside of coaching I had time for a few adventures. I did some amazing mountain running which was made beautiful by the snow but the novelty normally wore off once my shins were bloody from falling through the icy top layer. My host family had a lake cabin a few hours away which made for a great weekend trip full of running, wildlife and DIY construction.

Lastly, I flew with some clubmates to Kelowna in British Columbia for the Sage Stomp orienteering competition. Turns out I wasn’t the only PAPO orienteer there – it was amazing to bump into Kathrine Mueller as we watched a sunset over the campground. This was a very cool weekend racing in some epic terrain – and a great way to cap my time in Canada.

Thanks to the YOA, my hosts Sabine and Erik and Nick Smith for sending me the advertisement in the first place. The club will be hiring for next year (April/May/June ish) so if anyone is interested in coaching or visiting Canada for orienteering please get in touch, I have much more I can share!

Finally, for those curious: I was employed as a contractor for paid $28.5/hr (CAD), working ~32hrs a week. On top of this the club also paid for one-way flights, accommodation and a food stipend. All-in-all I was earning more than my engineering consultant job back home! The club has the money to pay for this thanks to large federal ‘Transfer Payments’ which heavily support the Yukon Government. “Territorial Formula Financing is an annual unconditional transfer from the Government of Canada to the three territorial governments to enable them to provide their residents a range of public services comparable to those offered by provincial governments, at comparable levels of taxation.”